Straight Talk on running with a cause

I had vowed to run my first marathon within the year but just for personal reasons. I haven't quite figured out the logistics, the details, the training yet...I guess I haven't built up the confidence or conviction to see this commitment through.

I am rethinking my resolution when I came across an article on SocialVibe about Katie Price, a woman who will raise funds by running the London Marathon for her chosen charity. I am now thinking of running the Milo Marathon this year on behalf of both a local and my SocialVibe charity (Hunger and Poverty). I still don't know how to work this one out but I will use the free time now to get as much information as possible.

Straight Talk on service and volunteerism

Today, on the eve of Obama's inauguration, we are reminded for the need to serve, to volunteer, to give something of ourselves for others. This help may either be direct involvement in charities or causes or a donation to the same.

I know many of us would like to help but either don't know where or how to get started. I was in that position as well some time back but online friends pointed me to several charity-run and aggregator sites where one may register to participate. Participation comes in several forms: recruitment, awareness, and/or fund-raising. Awareness requires the posting of site badges on personal websites or blogs. Recruitment involves inviting friends to participate in the program, usually through social networking sites. Fund-raising is self-explanatory but with a twist - people may give through numerous online payment gateways like Paypal, VISA/MasterCard/ Discover/AmEx or debit cards.

I have recently signed up on SocialVibe, a charity/cause aggregator and chose Clean Water as my charity. There are numerous others including AIDS care, cancer awareness, poverty alleviation, and the like. Click on the blog title to see one successful project that has allowed the installation of a deep well for 333 individuals in Central Africa.

Given the proliferation of such sites, one will now be hard-pressed to claim ignorance of ways to help.

Straight talk on web security

Despite the years I have spent online, I am still a rank amateur as far as personal security is concerned. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to list a few key points to ensure one's online safety and privacy.

First, de-list birthdays from public profiles like on Friendster, Facebook , and the like. Remember, credit card companies and other financial institutions use birthdays for the validation of identity. In addition, we frequently use our birthdays or a combination of the digits as our PIN numbers.

Secondly, manage the privacy settings for personal information. Details like phone & mobile numbers and physical/mailing addresses should never be listed or, if socially relevant, limited only to close friends and family or others for whom the information would be relevant to. Same goes for the names of the individual members of one's immediate family and even pets.

Always review the privacy settings of the social networking sites you use; if in doubt, block all access to personal information. It would be important to note that the combination of the contact information with the tags on family pictures will provide outsiders not only with unnecessarily intimate information on your family and home but also the means to use the same.

As mentioned in the immediately preceding paragraph, manage access to pictures. No sense allowing the worldwide web know how your house, your family members, and/or your possessions look like, at least, without your expressed permission.